Weather Service forecasts wet fall for South Florida

The new three month forecast shows wet weather in the Southeast, dry conditions in the Northwest. (Credit: NWS/ CPC)

4 PM UPDATE: Rainfall amounts from late Friday afternoon through late Saturday afternoon included 1.68 inches at Palm Beach International Airport; 2.70 inches in Greenacres; 2.04 inches in Lantana; 1.32 inches in Boca Raton; and 2.56 inches in Royal Palm Beach.

One reporting station in Boynton Beach just east of I-95 and north of Gateway Boulevard reported 3.91 inches.

Homestead Air Force Base in Miami-Dade County reported 2.79 inches, and a station west of Florida’s Turnpike and south of SW 42nd Street north of Kendall reported 6.38 inches. A flash flood warning was issued late Saturday for that part of Miami-Dade.

More rain was expected in Palm Beach County Saturday night and Sunday before precipitation chances taper off on Monday.

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ORIGINAL POST: Look for above normal precipitation in South Florida right into the new year, a new long-range forecast from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center says.

Rainfall should be particularly plentiful from South Texas through southern Louisiana to the Carolinas and down to Central Florida, according to the October-December forecast released Thursday.

The CPC hedged its bets on temperature trends, saying there is an equal chance of above, below, or normal temperatures.

El Nino, warmer-than-average water in the tropical Pacific, is expected to kick in by the end of September and that usually means wet weather for the Southeastern U.S. The Northwestern states, including Washington and Oregon, should be much drier than normal.

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Meanwhile, the first three weeks of September have been on the dry side but it looks like the month will go out on a rather soggy note.

Palm Beach International Airport recorded 0.87 of an inch of rain Friday, which pulled us up to 4.47 inches for the month, still more than an inch and a half short of normal.

But another quarter of an inch fell in the wee hours of Saturday morning and more was on the way thanks to some heavy weather that was building in the Keys and streaming north.

Boca Raton reported 0.76 of an inch Friday through Saturday morning and Lantana had 0.84 of an inch. In Broward County, almost an inch and a half fell in Miramar and in Miami-Dade, 1.34 inches fell through Saturday morning. Opa-locka Airport was hammered with 1.53 inches.

Three more factors are expected to keep South Florida in the soup at least through the middle of next week. One is the stalled cold front north of Lake Okeechobee, which has been hanging around for days and generating afternoon showers.

Another is a low pressure system that is forecast to develop in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and a third is a tropical wave that could swing into the area around Wednesday. The chance of daytime showers and thunderstorms will stay at around 40 percent through the coming week, a reminder that the rainy season is still in full swing as we head toward the first week of October.

Autumn arrived Saturday morning at 10:49 EDT amid heavy rain, and satellite images showed more moisture boiling up all the way down to the northwestern Caribbean.

If you wanted some cool Florida-style fall weather you had to go to Tallahassee, where low temperatures will be in the 60s over the weekend with a delightfully cool 57 degrees forecast for Sunday night.

Or, you could try Atlanta with a forecast Sunday high of 78 degrees and a clear and crisp low of 51 on Sunday night.

TROPICS WATCH: The system in the Central Atlantic, Invest 94L, which forecasters said on Thursday had a high chance of becoming a cyclone, looks like it won’t develop after all. Nadine became extra-tropical, but has a shot at regeneration after turning toward the south-southeast, heading once again for warmer water after scraping the Azores in the Eastern Atlantic.

The long-range GFS forecast model shows a system brewing up east of the Bahamas late next weekend and possibly impacting Cuba the first week of the new month.

About the Author

John Nelander is a freelance writer, book editor and publisher in West Palm Beach. Weather Matters features news and observations about the weather with a focus on what's happening in South Florida. The blog also looks at the latest studies on climate change as well as what's happening in the weather forecasting biz. His website is www.pbeditorialservices.com.